Daniel Paul O’Brien is a lecturer in Film and Digital Media at The University of Essex. His teaching and research consider the relationship between the human body, narrative and a range of media technologies from film and television to progressing forms of interactive engagement, including digital art, theatre and computer gaming. His work explores how we are becoming more entangled with media technologies to produce and co-create story, and how in turn digital story and media technologies are co-creating us.
Authors | Daniel Paul O'Brien
Articles on Amodern by Daniel Paul O'Brien
EXTANT’S FLATLAND
Disability and Postphenomenological Narrative
This paper explores the human body’s relationship to technology and modes of storytelling through postphenomenology. It considers how the body is key to making sense of the world and how the disabled body is an opportunity to experience narrative in new and sensuous ways. In particular, it considers a production of Flatland (2015) by Extant Theatre Company, which consists of blind or partially sighted members. The interactive production unfolds in a pitch-black space, which requires audience members to use their bodies along with a haptic guiding tool, to navigate through the show. Weaving disability and postphenomenology studies together, I argue that Extant changes audience members to postphenomenological performers.